We visited Perth's Kings Park & Botanical Gardens is a 4.06 square kilometre (1,003 acre) park on the western edge of the business district. The park is a mixture of grassed parkland, botanical gardens and natural bushland on Mount Eliza with two thirds of the grounds conserved as native bushland. With panoramic views of the Swan River and Darling Range, it is home to over 300 native plant varieties and 80 bird species. It overlooks the city as well as the Swan River.
There are sections of Banksias, Grevillea & Hakeas, arid zone & wet zone plants etc amongst many areas of grass for picnics.
We were visiting in mid October & the gardens were awash with colour.
There were plenty of gardens full of colour from the bus stop to the official front entry
Before we ventured into the vast expanse of separate gardens with large spaces of lush green lawn we had to look at the beautiful scenery that the gardens sits over.
The dot in the photo is a plane that was performing acrobatic movements along with several others. We're not sure, but they may have been practicing for the up coming CHOGM event.
There was an area with a couple of trees that didn't look quite as good ( or as old) as this Boab tree. Perth has a famous Boab that was trucked south for the north Pilbara region as it was in the way of a major highway construction. Trucking the tree south to Perth was a major event apparently. The trees normally have leaves only during the wet season to conserve water. The famous Boab in Perth to me, looked sick / dead, but I've been told that it is quite healthy. Because it looked sick / dead to me I didn't take a pick of it. It's not as large as this big guy from Derby area, but a Boab never the less :) They are endemic to the Kimberley region.
The Banksia garden was probably my favourite part of the whole garden. Numerous banksia's weren't in flower.
The Bull Banksia was predominant in the Serpentine National Park behind our week long stay in Perth.
The Ashby Banksia
the banksia's close to the ground are interesting
Cayley's Banksia
Burma Road Banksia
Rose Banksia was different
Scarlet Banksia is near the end of it's flowering period here
another Banksia growing prostrate, not yet in full flower ready for the honeyeater birds.
The next area is of grevillea & hakea's
??, but I love this shot
I think this is a hakea, but I don't know the name, but check the leaves -- ouch
Sparse flowered grevillea has single flowers
The flower bloom of grevillea leucoclada looks complicated & the leaves look deadly as well
The Hairy Phalanx Grevillea is apparently on the critically endangered list. The flower is only 1 sided.
??
Grevillea Communata
Desert Grevillea
Wax Grevillea - another intricate flower
I think another hakea with spiky leaves
The Mottlecah flower is quite large & belongs to the eucalypt family
Sand Bottlebrush - red form - I love the leaf form on this plant - I came across lots of shrubs with the leaf pattern like this with a small puff ball of colour - cream, mauve, purple & yellow
orange & cream form
another version of verticordia ( lots different 1's in part 2) - Cooloomia
Cranbrook Bell flower - I think this plant is the 1 I saw lots of in The Stirling Range National Park recently growing high up the mts.
A melaleuca
I think this flower belongs to a Mallee bush
Augusta Kennedia - from Augusta in the SW of WA I guess - I saw lots of flowers looking like this form Kalbarri south - all with different names & colours
I saw this tree for the 1st time here in Kings Park - I love the ageing trunk formation & have no idea of the age of it. Called Peppermint Tree, which sort of smells like peppermint, flowering profusely in the SW region with a weeping effect. Many towns used these trees for their street shade trees.
Maybe another Mallee tree flower, but much larger than the previous 1 above.
I'm not sure if this Coral Tree was endemic to WA, or just out the front near a roadway for good shade.
There were a couple of different colours of Kangaroo Paw in the park
The Black version looked quite amazing
This 1 is a miniature form of the larger plants
??
These are gardens of various flowering plants for good colour with great effect not far from the main entry area.
After leaving Perth we concentrated ourselves around the SW region south of Bunbury & Busselton towards Augusta in the far south.
Most times I found this Yellow Dryandra bush further north to Kalbarri, Geraldton & inland from there, ir had finished flowering. As you can see the plant leaves again are quite spiky.
An unusual flower - Lemon Scented Darwinia - there are dozens of varieties of Darwinia according to Wikipedia.
I think this is a grass called Bee grass - with eyes looking at you as you walked past it :)
pretty, but ?? it almost looks like an orchid
The Sun Orchid - shown again as I haven't seen many orchids & this 1 is quite common & still in flower!!!
I didn't realize how tattered this poor flower looks - unnamed again
another unnamed orchid - poor thing as it was pretty & not that big in size
?? but quite exquisite don't you think?
another unknown flower that looks really gorgeous
Star flower was growing every where in the National Parks
am not sure if this plant is a weed or an actual native flower - but I loved its appearance - hence its' appearance here :)
Most of the western coast of the bottom SW region of WA is National Park - Cape Naturaliste in the top to Cape Leuwin in the very south tip - both very rugged & rocky coastal areas. Both names join up to form 1 long National Park covering most of the western coastal area.
This is the view during our >3 km walk around the tip of Cape Naturaliste. Pretty flowering bushes & views to the Indian Ocean
??
??
More along the walk trail in Cape Naturaliste
The different colours around us was endless
?? again, but this 1 was hard to get a pic of as it faces downwards
Still walking around Cape Naturaliste :)
I fell in love with flowering Banksia trees & couldn't stop taking pics of them :)
The Yellow Pin Cushion Protea @ Busselton was a reasonably big bush & was covered in flowers like this 1.
?
This flower is really large & the macro of it is quite amazing with mauve fronds coming from each individual flower
That is another Protea flower - found growing in a Protea farm, but no one was around to show us around :)
The above & below flower is in fact a weed ! - Watsonia - is growing every where in the SW areas & looks quite pretty growing en mass :) Got out of control & now a "weed" poor thing.
Many of the flowers of the SW were seen further north & east of Perth.
It's almost time to start another new chapter on wild flowers - this time covering the areas east of The Margaret River Region :))
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